


Aloft

by Rubynye



Category: DC Comics
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Discussion of character death, Flying Sex, Multi, Nonmonogamy, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:29:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Help me with my girlfriend's birthday gift."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aloft

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings/Features: AU. Slash, het, threesome, canon character death discussed.  
> Beta Reader: [](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/profile)[**petronelle**](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/), to whom I extend all my thanks.  
> Dedicated to: [](http://thete1.livejournal.com/profile)[**thete1**](http://thete1.livejournal.com/) and [](http://buggery.livejournal.com/profile)[**buggery**](http://buggery.livejournal.com/) as a belated hostess gift.

Title: Aloft  
Fandom: DC Comics  
Rating: NC-17  
Summary: "Help me with my girlfriend's birthday gift."  
Pairings: A couple different combinations of Supers and Robins

 

It started with the birthday presents. Tim improved and lightened the armor on Steph's suit. She spent a month's savings on the Star Wars collector's edition DVD set. He got her two dresses and two duffels that would fold up small enough for utility belt compartments. She bought a strap-on that's the perfect shade of red. Tim really doesn't know how to top that, as it were.

He's not certain why he says anything about it, though. It may be the particular day, the particular moment, the particular breath of sunshine and ozone off Superman when he wafts up beside Tim, who is standing on the roof of Titans Tower remembering watching Kon fly away into the San Francisco sky.

Maybe it's because Tim remembers how similarly Kon would lift an eyebrow -- perhaps it's a Kryptonian thing, or a way Superfamily members look at the Bats-- and how it was so hard to resist smiling when Kon did that Tim often didn't try. Maybe it's simply because Steph is, in a way, all he has left.

But when Superman -- Clark -- asks if there's anything he can do for Tim, as he always does, Tim responds, "help me with my girlfriend's birthday gift."

 

*^*

Steph doesn't, quite, have her nose pressed to the window glass, but it's a near thing. "Wow!" she says occasionally, and "oh," and "Metropolis is so _pretty_" once or twice.

Tim isn't letting himself keep count. He's just watching her as she gazes out over the daytime shine of glassy towers and midair traffic that is Metropolis. When he looks out the window himself, at the blue sky and the flying vehicles and the sunlight gleaming off the towers, he wonders how similar a levitating car would be to the Supercycle and about the uses of a flying Batmobile, and feels slightly disloyal. Gotham is fine as it is. Well, no, it's not, or he and Steph wouldn't be Robins. But it doesn't need alien tech made of extraplanetary materials, no matter how alluringly it sparkles.

Tim looks over at Steph again, the millimeter of space between her nose and the glass, her parted lips and the brighter shine in her eyes, and no longer feels disloyal.

"Robins?" Steph turns, and Tim turns with her to see Superman bobbing a few inches above the floor. Looking at them expectantly, with a small -- for Superman -- smile in the corners of his mouth. "Robins," he says again, obviously enjoying the word, and Steph stands even straighter, her grin bright and wide and happy.

Tim watches her from the edge of his mask, and nods to Superman, taking the cue to smile. "We're ready."

"Hang on." The admonition is unnecessary, with Clark lifting them up each beneath one arm, rising gently for a few feet to acclimate them.

Then he flies.

Up and up, above even the tallest buildings, into Metropolis' blue sky. Tim has been this high before, felt the wind pouring over him and through his hair, snapping at his cape where it billows behind them. He's been this high before, looking down at miniature rooftops below, reminding himself that each is a skyscraper. He relaxes against Superman's side to be held more easily, and doesn't clutch the suit over the disturbingly warm, hard, well-muscled chest, and doesn't wind his legs around anything. He's flown this high before, with several fliers. With Kon.

Steph has not, with anyone. Steph has her head tilted back and her hair whipping in the wind, her arms around Superman's neck as she stares at the city below. The rush of wind hides her intake of breath, but Tim isn't surprised at all when she screams, "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Clark chuckles.

"Oh, my God, oh my God, eeee!" Steph is shrieking in words, but she's still shrieking. Which is what Tim had hoped her reaction would be, really. "Oh, my God we're so _high_! Everything's so tiny!" She squeezes Clark around the neck, reaching across for Tim's hand. "Oh, my God, this is _awesome_."

Tim looks down. Metropolis has fallen away to expanses of square green fields and tiny scattered buildings. He squeezes Steph's hand as he tries to orient. "We're heading... west?"

"I thought," says Clark calmly, perfectly audible despite the roaring wind and the flap of their capes, "that Stephanie deserves the best cake I could arrange for her."

 

*^*

 

Tim should have anticipated dinner at the Kents'. If he had he would have braced himself against memories and treated the evening like a particularly intense battle. As it is Martha Kent's hug peels off what little armor he's able to summon, even before Steph tucks her hand into his, gauntlets palm to palm, and squeezes.

Tim smiles, at first because he should, hoping it doesn't look too tight for plausibility. It should be strange to sit down to dinner in their costumes, but the Kents are supremely unfazed and Clark looks as relaxed as if he's wearing jeans. Dinner in this house should be difficult, but as it goes on, between Mrs. Kent's gentle hospitality and the mountain of mashed potatoes, the mannerisms Clark has obviously inherited from Mr. Kent and each new shade of delight on Steph's face, Tim finds himself unexpectedly inhabiting his smile.

Then the cake, chocolate with billowy cream frosting, is completely eaten, and dinner is over. Clark stands with one arm around Steph's waist as everyone looks at Tim expectantly, and he still hasn't gone upstairs. "Here's the respirator," he says, pulling an extra oxygen cartridge from his belt. "Be careful--" Not to fall? Not to get hypothermic? Beside Clark? Tim bites his lip and looks up into Steph's eyes, tinted green by the warm light and her mask. "Have fun."

"You're-- not coming." The question leaves Steph's voice, and she smiles more lopsidedly than she ever should on her birthday, and leans down to kiss Tim beside his mouth. "Thank you, sweetie."

Tim watches Clark lift her out of sight, a dwindling multicolored dot in the evening blue sky. When he looks down again, Mrs. Kent is standing beside him, her smile gentle, and he doesn't have to say a word.

The Kents haven't made Kon's room into a shrine. It's the same room, with the same posters and the same pile of textbooks and the same smashed alarm clock. They've simply kept it the way it was, as if he might walk through the door, or float through the window, at any moment. Tim stands in the middle of the room while Mrs. Kent stands in the doorway; when he sits on the bed, which still smells like Kon, Mrs. Kent sits silently beside him and sets a light, warm hand on his shoulder.

Tim doesn't pick up a pillow and bury his face in it. He simply sits, hands folded in his lap, and breathes, and lets himself lose track of time until the wind in the trees outside picks up warningly before he even hears the happy shrieking. After a last deep breath he goes back downstairs just before Clark arrives with Steph, her hair disheveled and her eyes alight. "Oh, oh my God," she gasps, leaping down from Clark's hold to throw her arms around Tim's neck. "Everything's so beautiful from up there! It's all blue and green and warm and alive and I never knew how incredible it would be!"

Over her shoulder, Clark winks at him. Steph squeezes a little more tightly, and Tim can feel Mrs. Kent smiling at his back.

*^*

Eventually, Clark hugs his parents goodnight, and Steph shakes their hands gratefully; when Tim goes to say goodbye Mrs. Kent gently and firmly hugs him. Then Clark lifts them into the air, and the continent pours out below them until Metropolis glimmers on the edge of the sea. The city's shimmer nears and grows till they're inside it, and Clark even obligingly finds one of the few dark places to set them down in. Tim blanks his expression as best he can; his heart is unavoidably racing, and he knows Clark can hear it, but he still needs to try.

He's ready to thank Clark with a businesslike handshake.

Steph throws her arms around Clark's neck and kisses him.

Tim watches helplessly as her feet leave the ground, as Clark sets his massive hands on her slender waist, holds her in midair and returns the kiss.

It's not baffling, really. With her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling, Steph is irresistibly beautiful. And Clark is golden and warm and inhumanly perfect, hovering six inches up. She kicks her feet exuberantly and moans with shameless happiness before she pulls her head back. "Thank you, Superman! I had a wonderful time!"

"Call me Clark," he replies, and Tim is beginning to remember how to be angry at Superman when Steph turns her bright, bright smile on him. Maybe she's been taking lessons in charm from Dick, not that she needs them at all as she holds out a hand.

"C'mere, Robin," she says. Tim takes her hand. She hooks her leg round Clark's waist as if he were a tree or a pole, pulls Tim in and kisses him so thoroughly he almost forgets the image of that leg in its green tights curled around Superman's waist.

Tim doesn't startle when Clark's hand curves around his waist as well. This, too, makes sense in its way. Even if all of this is insanity, and he should remind them both of that; instead he keeps kissing Steph as they take off, and she tastes sweet, her mouth soft and warm and eager.

Clark clears his throat, and says, "You two look wonderful, but I think you might want to hold on." Even then, it's difficult to let go, and their fingers stay entangled over the S-shield as Clark settles them into his hold. His cape falls around them, feeling deceptively like heavy cloth, and they accelerate. Explosively.

Tim can't see, can't hear anything but the roar of air, but he feels so much it almost doesn't matter. He feels Steph's hand tight around his, her racing pulse through her fingers, and Clark's steady pulse against his ear. The wind is another substance now, fluid as water and hard as a wall; they must be well past the speed of sound. Tim should be thinking. He presses his hand flat on Clark's back to keep from clutching, and feels himself being carried very, very fast.

He thinks Steph might be screaming again.

When they land Tim knows where they are even before his shaking legs will support him, even before the first breath of air so pure his Gotham-bred respiratory system almost coughs it out. Clark's cape is whisked away from around them, and Steph staggers on her feet. "Whoa. And I thought before was a flight! Where are-- holy shit-- Oops, I--"

Clark waves off Steph's blushing apology; he must be used to people trying to apologize for profanity. "Welcome to my Fortress," he says, with an expansive gesture, arm swept outward. Steph's hand shakes in Tim's as she looks out at the distinctively alien architecture, the walls grown of translucent, crystalline, literally unearthly material.

Tim takes a deep breath and the air is alien-sweet. He should probably put his arm around her. He isn't sure, but she has told him to be more spontaneous. And the possessiveness wouldn't be out of place. He does, and she leans into his shoulder as she stares around, naked wonder on her face. He really wants to kiss her again, but it would likely be a bad idea to start up another round of kisses. In Superman's-- Kal-el's, now, not Clark's-- home at the End of the World, things might end up going further than they should.

"Wow," Steph whispers. "Wow, I've-- I've been briefed on this place, but... wow."

Clark smiles. "Let me show you around?"

*^*

Tim is mortally certain that tour was abbreviated. Very abbreviated. By the Hall of Sentient Trees, as he's unofficially dubbed it, Clark is between them holding Steph's hand, his free hand drifting near till Tim folds his arms. The trees wave towards them in the breezeless, weirdly sweet air; Tim can't help but wonder what the trees think of the two young humans, and the resulting flash of mental images makes him nearly stagger and press his eyes shut behind his mask.

Steph notices, and giggles knowingly at him. Then she stands on the ends of her toes to kiss Clark's cheek.

Clark's response is to turn his face into it and kiss her mouth, and pick them both up and carry them diagonally up to a chamber filled with diffuse, sourceless pale light and dominated by a large soft bed. With crisp white sheets.

Tim wonders why the sheets seem so important, and why they've brought him along, till Clark kisses _him_. He tastes like Steph's lipstick, and Steph herself, and warm and alien, and a little like Kon.

Tim kisses back, even though he's not sure who he's responding to, but Steph makes small sharp noises of delight and unfastens his cape. "God, that's so hot," she says, voice roughening and cheeks pink. "He looks good on you." Tim reaches for her curved, glowing cheek, and she catches his wrist in her hand and pulls his glove off with her teeth.

The choice of who he's responding to is quickly becoming academic. Clark is too warm not to be felt, as warm as strong sunshine, and invulnerable skin shouldn't feel so soft and alive under ordinary human fingers. Steph is as warm as a human should be, her drawn-down eyebrows crinkling her mask as she puckers her hot wet mouth around Tim's index finger. He's sinking under this; he falls flat on his back on the cool white bed, and Steph kneels over him and starts disarming his tunic, biting her lip while she recalls the codes. Clark's cape flutters to the floor, and he settles beside them, smiling expansively. "Robins, you look wonderful together."

Tim tries to speak and realizes his mouth is hanging open. Steph smiles, at both of them. "Thank you, Clark," she says almost primly, eyes alight with the understatement, and tilts her chin up for Clark to kiss her again as Tim's suit opens beneath her hands.

*^*

Steph is beautiful. Tim's thought so since he pulled her mask off her angry, hopeful face, just before she hit him with a brick. He thought so when she climbed through his window, dressed in red and green and gold and hope. He thinks so now, as her blonde hair flares out, her cool green mask hiding absolutely nothing on her face, as she groans unabashedly, arching her back and clutching his hands. Clark's hands are huge and golden on her pale round hips, lifting them to his mouth, and Tim should possibly do more than kneel behind her head holding her hands and watching Clark rim her, which he really hadn't been expecting. Neither had she, judging by the way her eyes flew open, wide and unseeing and aqua blue, before she grinned and gasped a laugh, squeezing them shut and pushing into it.

That was two orgasms ago, and Steph is sweating now like she's been sparring, dappled glowing shades of pink, every muscle tensed and straining as she twists. She's absolutely gorgeous, and she's moaning, and she sounds like she's about to come again, her mouth working. She's trying to say something. She's saying, "kiss me, kiss me, fucking kiss me--"

Tim kisses her, upside down and deep, nose mashed against her chin, but he can't close his eyes. She starts to scream into his mouth, and he can feel vibrate it in his lips, feel the tremor of her coming as he watches her belly flex and beyond it the glossy bob of Clark's hair between her flushed thighs.

He reminds himself, again, that it really wouldn't've been fair to leave his mask cameras on.

Steph is gasping against his mouth. Tim backs off and watches her face till her expression firms into a slightly embarrassed smile. "Oh, God. Su-- Clark. Oh my God." She disentangles one hand from Tim's to push on Clark's head, and he rises up to kiss her over her belly button; Steph laughs breathlessly, cheeks darkening as she squeezes Tim's hand. She's blushing. "Holy fu-- I mean--" She shakes her head, her hair feathery over Tim's thighs. "I-- you nearly killed me. I'm-- wow. Not really succeeding at English." Still laughing at herself, still shaking her head, she pushes herself up, and Clark sets her down on the bed and lets her wriggle from his grasp with slight but noticeable difficulty.

Tim can understand. He doesn't want to let go of her hand, either. She turns to him, eyes wide and alight. "Oh, man, sweetie. My ass feels like it's _glowing_." She laughs triumphantly at the blush he can feel flaring across his face, and Clark is very tall and golden and perfect in Tim's peripheral vision as he sits on the bed watching them. Tim can hear him breathing, which may be deliberate and must be significant. "You haveta-- have you ever?" Tim nods, and she grins and kisses him, trailing her fingers down his throat and breastbone, pressing her hand flat over his heart as she curves her tongue around his.

He pushes a little into the kiss; she pushes back, a growl of laughter in her throat, and strokes one hand down his body. Clark inhales audibly; is he deliberately smelling them? Tim shivers, and Steph lightly bites him; he breathes through his nose as her hand reaches his chest, bracing as she skims his abdomen, and does not startle again when she stops just above his groin. She pulls away from his mouth to look slyly over her shoulder. "Clark?" Little strands of hair are sticking to her back. "Can I ask you a favor?"

"Anything, Stephanie." Clark is smiling at them as if this were something entirely more wholesome, or at least more innocent, than a threesome at the end of the world. "It's your birthday."

"I want to see what he looks like when you rim him, while I go down on him." Her grin is sharp and bright as she dents one corner of her lip. "How about it, sweetie? Ready for your turn?"

Clark's smile has gotten even warmer, and much nearer. Steph kisses Tim's jaw, her mouth soft and hot and sharp with teeth, and there's no better answer than to let his "yes" be a groan as he tips backwards, small and large hands on his shoulders and back, two pairs of lips on his throat. As Clark's large, gentle hand settles over his pounding heart, as the tips of Steph's nails riffle through his pubic hair and her hand curves around him.

 

*^*

 

Clark doesn't smell human. That's the first actual thought in words that bounces around the explosively cleared space inside Tim's mind. All around it are sensations and reactions: Steph's breasts pressed against his chest, Clark a wall of heat against his back; her shoulderblade moving beneath his hand, her fist tight in his hair, her parted lips dragging against his cheek as she rocks her hips -- she's still moving, within Clark's hands cupped around her waist -- and her leg tight around his waist. Both their waists.

And how hot she is, around him, shaking under his hands, incongruously soft till she growls against his throat. Her constant motion, and Clark's sudden utter stillness behind him, within him. The way she smells, sweet and musky, familiar and human, and Clark who smells like a thunderstorm, alien and natural, strangely familiar and almost unbearably wonderful. Kon had smelled a little like the balance between, where the human and the superhuman met. Tim remembers, and holds Steph that much tighter.

Steph isn't the only one shaking. But Tim did just come, right after she did. And Clark, with beyond-perfect control, is letting them catch their breath. Tim digs his fingers in a little into the damp softness of Steph's skin, and takes a deep calming breath as he reaches up and back. Clark's chin is lightly cleft, his lips soft and hard and infinitely gentle as he presses them to Tim's palm. His face is dry and radiant, his hair straight and silky and utterly human-feeling, except that by now it should be as damp as Steph's, as soaked as Tim's.

Tim knows better than to tug on Clark's hair. Steph's face presses to the crook of his neck as he turns his head, his cheek against one of the broad planes of Superman's chest, and struggles for coherence against the heat within and around him. Steph is gasping, and Tim's really not much better, but they can't let Clark just look at them with infinity in his eyes. Tim can't stand it.

"You too," he croaks, his voice rough from shouting. "Please."

Clark smiles a little wider. "If... yes. Thank you." His eyes are large and deep, a hot impossible blue with just the faintest center of red, and he touches Tim's chin. "Are you ready?"

Steph's eyelashes flick across Tim's pulse. She's still breathing hard, but she grins, and nods, and presses her cheek against Clark's hand. He unfolds his two fingers along her jaw, still cradling Tim's face in the others, and Tim feels her shiver when Clark delicately shifts his hold on her waist. She unclenches one hand from Tim's hair to hold Clark's shoulder, and Tim momentarily misses the burning tug and her arm brushing his cheek.

Then Clark starts to move them again, both of them, and Tim wants to hide his face in Steph's hair. Words are falling through his mind on their way out his ears, _titanic_ and _overwhelming_ and _ecstatic_, and Steph hums excitement into his ear, and he can't hide his face because Clark has him, has them both. Clark shifts them, even closer, and Steph's breath whooshes over Tim's ear precisely as he gasps, as the hit to his prostate makes him sob and see sparks. He clutches Clark's hair and Steph's skin as he lets the words go, just before he has to scream again.

 

*^*

 

Tim wakes up while Steph is still asleep, possibly because his fingers throb. Steph rolled over them as she snuggled into Tim's side, her arm across his chest, her hair tickling his chin. The vague light in the room is low and somehow warmer, it feels like midnight Gotham-time, and as part of her present Tim will never tell her that she's drooling on his shoulder in her sleep.

Of all the injuries Tim's acquired as Robin, cutting his fingers on Superman's hair has to be one of the more unusual, and ridiculous. With some regret, he eases his arm out from beneath Steph's body to examine his hand; he can feel the parallel cuts, and he's frankly lucky it wasn't worse, but the bandages are still white.

A breath of wind, a whiff of ozone. "I _am_ sorry about that." Clark sits on the bed beside Tim, smile gently lopsided. "How are you feeling?"

Sated. Warm. Strange. More surprised -- more amazed -- than he should be. Tim assumes a tilted smile to match Clark's. "Okay." Clark touches Tim's cheek lightly, and he smells faintly of smoke. "Were you--?" Clark nods, the touch becoming a stroke. Tim feels the broad, gentle fingertips skim the architecture of his face, and wants to close his eyes and lean into the touch. He doesn't, but he does smile a little wider.

"Something came up-- a fire, you know how it is--" Clark, addressing them as fellow heroes, makes Tim wish Steph could hear him-- "and you were both asleep, so I stepped out. You haven't been awake long?"

As if he doesn't know. Tim lets his lip curl just enough, until Clark's smile widens apologetically. Tim pushes his cheek into Clark's hand, briefly, before sitting up. "What time is it, in Gotham?"

"11:54." Clark slides his hand down Tim's neck and shoulder, over his arm to his wrist. "Come fly with me."

"Steph's not going to want to wake up." She will, but if she's asleep at midnight she must be worn out; it'll be better if they let her sleep another hour.

Clark shakes his head. "Let's not wake her then. Come fly with me." His hand around Tim's completely encases it.

And leave Steph alone here? Tim opens his mouth to say so, and Clark smiles wider. "I'll be listening, and if she wakes up we'll come right back. I have something I'd like to show you."

Tim looks down at Steph, eyes still beneath their lids, breathing even, and up at Clark's inviting expression. Then he pulls free and steps out of the bed; their suits are scattered across the floor, but he can easily find her communicator by its eggplant paint job. He leaves his own on the pillow beside her hand before he looks up at Clark again. "All right."

*^*

At night the American countryside is a patchwork of dark and darker blues, the glint of moving water, the stationary yellow lights of scattered houses and the tiny white pairs of lights that indicate the occasional car or truck. If Tim toggled his lenses he could find a color filter that would separate trees from farmland, the pavement of highways and different species of crops. Tim could memorize the landmarks below him for his next flight across this territory.

He could do any number of useful tasks up here, floating under Clark's arm in the night sky. But he feels loose and unstrung, the edges of his mind dulled with residual endorphins; Dick would tell him to relax and enjoy himself, with one of his sharper smirks and a joke about the Mile High Club. Steph, sleeping in Antarctica, would say how pretty and peaceful it is, and reach across for his hand. Kon would tell him to take a break for once, after looking shocked for... not really long enough, before he'd look rueful. Possibly even knowing.

Clark has matched speed with the wind, and it feels almost as if they're floating in place, the world turning beneath them. "Would you like to see San Francisco?"

That skyline is nearly as familiar, these days, as Gotham's. "I don't-- need to. This is..." quiet, beautiful, dark. Enough. "Fine."

Clark nods. The air around him is a slowly expanding bubble of warmth. "Kon did... enjoy San Francisco, and the Pacific."

"Hawaii." Tim looks down and away, presenting the flimsy shield of his head until he has his face completely under control.

A pointless effort. "I know you were thinking of him tonight," Clark says, simply and implacably.

Did he forget himself enough to be that transparent? Tim closes his eyes, knowing it's no more protection than the mask is, or his suit was. "Is Steph still asleep?" One obvious statement for another.

"Soundly." Clark's teeth glint in his smile.

"We should go back before she wakes up."

"Of course." But they're still floating, and Clark is still looking at Tim. "I had a wonderful evening."

"So did Steph." Tim will never forget the tilt of her head and the brightness of her smile, when she saw Metropolis, just after she returned from flying with Clark, just before she kissed him.

"Did you, Tim?" Clark looks like... Tim thinks of the Milky Way through a telescope, the subtle sparkle of distant stars. Superman's eyes are like that now, blue and dark and as deep as the sky. Tim's not with Clark now, if he ever was all night.

When Tim breathes he can feel broad, powerful fingers over his ribs. He nods, but still... "Did you bring me up here to ask me?"

Clark chuckles. "I brought you up here to fly over America with you." He cups Tim's cheek in his warm, dry palm. "And to tell you something." Clark looks at him expectantly, and Tim wants to close his eyes. He wants to watch Steph sleep. He wants Kon to be alive. He nods, moving his face in Clark's touch. "I was uncertain about whether or not Young Justice was a good idea, at least at the beginning, but I was never anything but sure concerning the Titans."

Clark pauses, a crease between his eyes. He looks disturbingly, deceptively human. "I wanted Kon to join the Titans because I knew... he needed friends who understood the life of a hero, who were also living it. He needed true peers." He strokes Tim's cheek, very lightly, very gently. "I know he resented living with my parents on the farm, that he thought I sent him there to be ordinary." This smile is fittingly warm, and as inescapable as the entire conversation. "He was never ordinary, and I'm not speaking of his powers. But he needed grounding, and I knew life in Smallville could give him that, balanced with time with the Titans. Not least, time with you."

Tim finds swallowing unexpectedly difficult, around the sudden lump. Clark thinks he was good for Kon. He... appreciates that. And hopes he hasn't used Steph to hear it. "Thank you. I... he was my... my friend. I..."

Clark slides his fingers beneath Tim's chin. "You're welcome. I wanted to take the opportunity to tell you. Thank _you_ for asking me to help with Stephanie's birthday; she's a splendid, beautiful young woman." His fingers curl in a stroke. "And you're a beautiful young man."

Clark's lips are soft and warm, as he kisses Tim, there in the sky.

 

*^*

It's 2:27 AM, and the Robins are standing on the balcony of Wayne Tower watching Superman fly away. He's far brighter than he should be against the cloudy reddish Gotham sky; he stroked both their faces with his thumbs, identical gestures, and kissed them both goodnight. Tim's skin feels strangely oversensitized, and he's aware of every inch of his clothes, the weight of the armor in his suit; the breeze really isn't stronger over his face, his cut fingers will stop tingling so noticeably, Steph's gauntleted hand will eventually stop feeling so intricately textured against his palm. He'll be able to concentrate soon enough, as Superman fades from sight, after another deep breath of exhaust-laced Gotham air. Or three. Or several.

"Dammit." Steph sighs happily. Tim looks at her from the corner of his eye. She knows it, and grins. "You're an overachiever, you know that? _And_ a jerk."

Tim waits for it.

"This," Steph says, "was the absolutely awesomest present ever."

Tim shrugs. She looks more purely happy than he has words for. "I wanted you to have a good birthday."

"I had a _great_ birthday." Steph kisses his cheek beneath his mask. "I'm totally never going to be able to top this. Ever." She takes a breath, considering. "At least not without asking Dick." Before he can catch himself Tim shivers, and blinks, and Steph laughs and lets go of him, grabbing the metal railing. "C'mon, we've still got four hours before dawn! Let's go catch up with B.G.!"

She flips over the railing, a blur of red and green and her bright blonde hair, and Tim watches her as she falls and flips and swings and shouts, before he climbs over after her and jumps down towards the city lights.

**Author's Note:**

> Just for the record, the pairings are: Steph/Tim, Clark/Tim/Steph, Clark/Tim, and Kon/Tim if one wants to see it. (I'm not saying it to be coy, but I felt, rereading the story, that it was ambiguous.)
> 
> Superman Returns made me love Kal-el so much I wanted to give him Robins. So I wrote this, and then I stared at it for a couple of months and interrogated myself about my motives.
> 
> But, what the hell. I've been semi-gafiated for a bit, I haven't posted nearly enough, and I want to get back in the swing of things. And I can but write what I write. So here this is.
> 
> (And the point of canon divergence is pretty obvious, right?)


End file.
